Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Wor ld C h amp io n sh ip R o a d R a c e S e r ie s F in a l Round: Valencia G r a n d Prix Valencia's Ricardo Tormo Circuit had a special disti ncti on for Valentino Rossi and not a good one. It was the only current track where he hadn't tak en a pole position and the only track where he hadn't won. On Saturday , he righted one of tho se wro ngs, taki ng the pole positi on, his ninth of the 16· race season. Winning the race would have to wait. Judging from his qua lify ing performance. a new lap record nearly .7 of a second over second place , Sunday ma y end with the second wrong righted. Rossi blitzed the 2.5-mile circuit j ust inland from the Mediterranean Sea with a lap of 1:32.478 on his last tour, well under the existi ng po le time of J :33.2 11 set by Max Biaggi last year. It was an impress ive achievement , and it looked that way on the run . "Was fantastic, the last lap: Rossi said. "I'm very . very happy because usually on this track I have a Iittie bit more prob lem than in the other track. Usually, I don't arrive very well : I don't feel more comfortable. But tod ay . yes, we make a good jo b. We had some prob lem in the mom ing, but in the aft emoon we fix the bike, and at the end we use... I use very well J00 percent the qualification tire and make a very , very good lap . Now we wait for tomorrow." Telefonica MoviStar Honda 's Sete Gibemau led the charts unti l there were just over four minutes to go. Then Rossi came past, bettered his time and improved on it. That left Gibem au in second . at 1:33 .148 . and unable to match Rossi. "I thin k it was pretty close to pole, but at the end Valentino [Rossi] did a very good lap, and he got everything together: Gibemau said. "The second time I went out. I ran into Thi rd, with a lap of 1:33.275, just .127 of a second behind Gibemau, went to Marlboro Ducati's Loris Capirossi on a tr ack th at didn't favo r the rapid , but not parti cularly agile, Desmosedici. "W e know th is track is not so easy for us, but we improve a lot the bike, at least today : said Capirossi , who will be starting his 200th GP on Sunday. "I am so happy because the bike wasn't good, and the lap tim e is very good . For sure the rhythm of the race is difficult for us, but we try some good tires this mom ing and we try to do the best." Nicky Hayden was next and grinning from ear to ear. He'd set his goals hig h for the final race of his rooki e cam paign and had begun to meet them. "This is ki nd of what I'm used to , tight and scra ppy , you got to hang it out ," Hayden, 22 , said of the track. "I'm having fun - last race of the year . No reason to ho ld anything back. " Fortu na Yamaha's Carlos Checa landed in the fifth spot in front of Max Biaggi and Alice Aprilia' s Colin Edwards. The team brough t out a new chassis , with an upside-down swingarm , for the race. Checa tried it in practice on Saturday moming and liked it enough to qualify fifth in the afternoon. "The new chassis gave me a much better feeling this moming, and this aftemoon it felt a bit better: Checa said. "We still need a littie time to set the chassis up for the rac e. and so tom orrow morning we will have the chance to test it further in the warm up . The main benefit I have felt today from the latest chassis is that I can keep the front on the ground more and control the rear when the bike is on its side." Biaggi went out with two minutes to go on a qualifier, hoping to move up the charts. But it wasn't happening, and he ended up sixth . "I'm not very happy today : Biaggi said. "Com pared to the winter tests we did here, .our time is worse. It's not that I don 't like the track because last year I was on pole ." Edwards was next, in seventh, in his final race for the team , hoping to give them a good send-off. "Maybe it 's too late. but I want to get a great result for Aprilia," th e Texan said . Gaulo ises Yamaha's Alex Barro s, widely tipped to move onto the RepsoJ Honda team, was disappointed that technic al probl ems sent him to the end of th e second row but sanguine giv en the inju ries he suffered in a Frida y crash. "Right at the end of the session we had a techn ical problem, wh ich meant that I cou ldn 't go out on qualifying tires for a final fast lap: said the Brazili an, who brok e a rib and hurt his neck and shoulders in Friday's spill. Suzuk i's John Hopkins was able to trim over a second off his qualifyi ng time from Fri dey, despite spending much of Saturd ay' s final qualify ing in and out of the pits . "We had electrical problems tha t affected the gearbox ," Hopkins said. "The bike would shift out of sync, and the team was chasing the problem the entire session. I went to the B bike, but it has a totally diffe rent chassis and setup, so it was not happe ning. Finally they made a Band -Aid fi x on the A bik e's gearbox, and I went back out with 10 m inutes to go and put my head down for five laps and was fortu nate to get the time I did." Team m ate Kenny Robert s Jr. was two spots back in 18th. "We tried a couple of things here sett ingwise that never panned out, and in the settings I used for the last couple of races. Suzuki has brought a new clutc h here that seems to offer a bit more for us in term s of setti ngs and feels a bit more natural, so we're messing around with that. It' s our biggest area at the mo ment. I didn't put tha t much effort into j ust getting a qualifying time. My rac e time s either have to be in the top 10 or they're not going to be." NOVEMBER 12.2003 · cue I sp oiled hi s final rac e of th e y ear. " T he gearbox p ro ble m was w orse in t he ra c e th an all w e e k e n d , " h e said. Rossi h ad c li nched h is f ifth World Champio n sh ip se veral races ago , bu t he su rpa ss ed la st yea r's p o ints total to fi ni sh w ith a re c o rd 357 . Gibernau was second at 2 77 , wi t h B iag g i third at 228 . M S A prilia's Manuel Pogg iali fill ed o u t the top 10 . w ell in front of clinched the 250cc World Ch ampi- Su zu k i' s K enny Roberts Jr. onship with a calculated and lonely The fo rme r 5 00c c W orld Champi- third place in the final race of the o n adm itted it was " a pretty l onely year. Randy de Puniet won the race e n e vv s ra c e ." T he sea so n h ad been try ing for o ver Toni E li a s , th e pair engaged Roberts Jr.. and he was glad to see it throughout and well clea r of Poggiali en d . some traffic. which is normal in this situatio n." 10 1Ab0ve left) Capirossl (6 5) managed to get the Ducati onto the podium, while Spaniard Carlos Checa (7 ) could only manage a f ifth in fro nt of his home crowd. Max Blaggl (3 ) was close to the front all day but never really had a shot at the win. 1Ab0ve) Alex Barros (4 ) ended up in sixth, while Co lin Edwards (45) put the Apri lia Int o eigh th In his last ri de on the bike. at the end. " W e fi ni she d healthy , and w e j u st Poggiali, the 200 1 125cc World need to loo k forward to improving o u r Champion, came to Valencia with a situati on," Roberts said. seven-point cushion on cha llenger T h e only r e a l b a tt l e o f t he day Robb ie Ro lfo, of the Fortuna Ho n d a cam e nex t , Proton KR 's J eremy team . F rom the start Poggiali w as in M c W ill ia m s throttli ng the V - five to a n fro nt, Ro lfo in th e ba ck, eve ntua lly 11 t h - p lac e f in ish whil e holding back rid in g to a seventh -p lace fi n ish . a tri o o f impatient ch alle nger s. The race for th e lead was hard "I prefer a fight , and t ha nkfu lly I fough t. Safilo Oxydo - LC R Ap ri lia's de ca me o ut o n top , " th e 39 - y ea r - old Puniet took the lead from Elias on the Ul st erman said . 23rd of 27 laps, with Poggia li several B ehind h im c a me Suzuk i ' s J ohn sec onds back in third and another Hopk in s, like Roberts Jr. , j ust wanti - larg e gap to fourth , taken, in the end , ng to get t o th e en d . b y Campetella Racing's S ylvain Guin - Un f ortun atel y , a bal k y g earb o x to li. Casey stoner won hi s f1rst-ever 12 5 Grand Prix after an up-and-down but impressive . .ason.

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